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Aug. 14, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:20
August 14, 2006, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Thank you, Johnny Donovan, and hello.
I know, I know.
I hate it when he's not here too, but he'll be back tomorrow.
But I have to tell you, as Roger Hedgecock said last couple of days ending the week, uh Rush always says, I hope nothing happens while I'm gone, and something always does happen.
And uh, like you, I can't wait to hear what he has to say about all the different things that have come up in the last few days.
I am Paul W. Smith, fellow student of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, where there is never a final exam, but we are tested every day.
And coming to you today from the Midwest campus of the Limbaugh Institute in Detroit, Michigan, the motor city, birthplace of Motown, and the Growing Life Sciences Corridor.
We've got an action-packed show for you today.
Lots to talk about, obviously, peace uh breaking out in the Middle East, some skirmishes being reported in Southern Lebanon, otherwise, the ceasefire seems to be holding for the time being.
Israeli soldiers killing six armed militants.
The Army says they were posing a danger.
And while the rockets apparently have stopped falling on the northern uh Israel border and around that area, many residents uh, as you might guess, still afraid to return too quickly.
The ceasefire is holding, and now the fire really is happening politically, uh, and the uh and and it's starting to show that uh some are now beginning to criticize the government's handling of this war.
Uh you can guess that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, uh his party is now out of power, they like to get back into power.
He says there were many failures in the war.
Uh people are uh angry, obviously, and there'll be more on that.
And unfortunately, uh coincidentally, things are looking grimmer still for Ariel Sharon.
His uh hospital says the former uh prime minister has deteriorating brain function and a new infection.
He's seventy-eight years old, he's been comatose since that stroke at the beginning of the year, so that's uh that's not good news either.
We'll go to uh Israel.
We're going to speak with Dory Gold, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations from 1997 through 1999.
He's been a diplomatic envoy to numerous international leaders.
Ambassador Gould has written numerous articles for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, etc.
Uh, he now runs the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
In fact, uh he wrote a book maybe you're familiar with Tower of Babel, How the United Nations has Fueled Global Chaos.
We'll be speaking to him live from Jerusalem in just a few minutes, reacting to the UN ceasefire, and how the average Israeli is doing that and the politicians as well.
We'll welcome in Daniel Pletka, Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
From the Cato Institute, it's Steven Slavinsky and his book, Buck Wild, How the Republicans broke the bank and became the party of big government.
Now this is something near and dear to all in the Limbaugh Institute of Conservative Studies, and has been giving us all political indigestion, to say the least, uh, for well, for a number of years now with the President George Bush.
We'll talk also with Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation.
This is good news.
Uh that this is something the government has done right.
Welfare reform celebrated its tenth anniversary recently, and uh and uh contrary to what everyone believed at the time, we didn't throw the poor under the bus.
And Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation will tell us just how good welfare reform has been and what it's meant to our poorest citizens of these United States.
And by the way, coincidentally, and maybe you saw this in the the Wall Street Journal, I think uh Saturday.
We also are celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of Reaganomics, and we do have to remind people that it was twenty-five years ago this past weekend that Ronald Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act.
The bill cut personal income tax rates by twenty-five percent across the board, indexed tax brackets for inflation, and reduced the corporate income tax.
Now the achievement of Reaganomics can only be fully understood by recalling the miserable state of affairs a quarter century ago, and for those of us who are around, it was good that the Wall Street Journal uh continued to point that out for those of you who don't remember or weren't.
Newsweek summarized the national mood when it wrote in 1981 that Reagan, quote, inherits the most dangerous economic crisis since Franklin Roosevelt took office forty-eight years ago, end of quote.
Now that was no exaggeration.
The Journal goes on to say the economy was enduring a cycle of rising inflation with growing levels of unemployment.
Do you remember, because I do, twenty percent mortgage interest rates?
You remember terms like stagflation, the misery index.
Well, we lived with those things, and you have to be reminded of them from time to time, and the results have been better than even some of the supporters of President Reagan could have known.
The Dow Jones industrial average first broke one thousand in nineteen seventy-two.
A decade later it was barely above eight hundred, one of the worst bear markets in history.
In the twenty five years since Reaganomics, however, the Dow has climbed to about eleven thousand, accounting for an increase in national wealth on the order of twenty-five trillion dollars to match that increase in percentage terms, the Dow would have to rise to some one hundred fifty thousand in the next quarter century.
Ronald Reagan, Reaganomics at twenty-five.
We should not forget, and we apparently have to remind the current administration about that, and we will, with the Cato Institute Steven Slavinsky coming up and Robert Rector, too, of the Heritage Foundation on the tenth anniversary of welfare reform.
Now, is it just me or was anyone else uh sensing as they read the New York Times over the last few days, and I have to, it's part of my job.
I know Rush doesn't have to, because he has a big staff, he has people who will read it for him.
But I have to do this, and uh and I'll tell you, to to see the way the stories have come through the New York Times, as if the British are far better at breaking up terrorist plots than these United States.
Did you skip did you get that sense in the way they were writing these stories?
I I did, and I don't think I'm overreacting.
I uh tracing terror plots, British watch, then pounce.
Experts see different tactics in U.S., which moves in quickly.
Well, yes, we do move in quickly because we have some different uh laws that we have to deal with.
I in Great Britain, they can hold somebody twenty-eight days without charge.
We have to make sure we have everything we need to to do the charges within forty-eight hours.
They can just swoop in and get someone.
So they can let these things go as long as they want, and if they think the bullet is coming, the trigger's about to be pulled, they jump in.
We can't do that.
Andrew McCarthy, former terrorism prosecutor, quoted in the Times, said he believed that British authorities are willing to allow terrorist plots to progress further Because if an attack appeared imminent, they could immediately round up the suspects, even without formal criminal charges.
They can arrest people without charging them with a crime, and that certainly would make a big difference on how long you'd be willing to let things run.
We can't do that.
We don't have the ability to do that.
So here and by the way, if I'm not mistaken, there have been in the last five years many more terrorist acts happening in Great Britain and in London specifically than than here in these United States.
But be that as it may, I uh I certainly uh salute uh the British authorities uh uh for doing a great job.
In fact, I I I wrote this in my uh Monday uh column in the Detroit News here in the Midwest uh because this just bothered me, and I'm just starting to worry a little bit about the way these things are coming down.
Every story, everything politicized.
Uh uh I I wrote this, uh oh how air travel has changed maybe forever.
Oh, how politics have stayed the same, maybe forever.
And before the last bottle of cologne was trashed, the last bottle of Pop downed at the airport, the politicians were weighing in on this latest story of our troubled times and distastefully using it as an opportunity to trash the President of the United States and his our war on terrorism.
Now, such quotes from the usual suspects, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and failed presidential candidate Senator John.
This wouldn't have happened if I was elected, Kerry, are everywhere, so I won't bore you again with them, but I am concerned that I might be becoming a bit cynical.
Maybe I'm just becoming a bit cynical.
Maybe I'm wrong about this, but you tell me.
As we all awoke to the news of the thwarted plot and the arrests made, and after being briefed on the details of the investigation by British intelligence and Scotland Yard, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, United States Senator Carl Levin is quoted as saying, and I and this is the quote one of the really important reinforcing lessons here is the importance of intelligence in terms of thwarting plots, particularly human intelligence.
People who are willing to report suspicious activities.
End of quote.
Now there's no mention in these quotes at least.
No mention of the great job British intelligence in Scotland Yard did using eavesdropping, wiretapping, monitoring phone records, spending and banking records to potentially save thousands of lives.
Now I'm certain the senator is very familiar with these clandestine techniques to nab bad guys because I know all of these were in the news recently.
I I think I'm off the top of my head, I think it was in the New York Times.
The Senator also didn't mention that U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group's communications.
You know, I'm thinking he probably just didn't want to get anyone in trouble with the ACLU or or maybe in trouble with the New York Times.
I'm not sure.
But Senator Levin went on to say, quote, we have to constantly learn, not just from mistakes, but from successes.
Yes, we do, Senator.
Finally, something you and I completely agree upon.
1-800-282-2882, 1-800-282-2882, or rush Limbaugh.com.
Our phone lines are always open to you.
Dory Gold, live in Israel, up next on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
This is Paul W. Smith in for Rush Limbaugh.
1-800-282-2882 is our direct line, 1-800-282-2882.
You can also get us at Rush Limbaugh.com.
When Israel began its counterattack on Hezbollah, uh, we uh supported them in every way, the U.S. did, the Bush administration.
And the idea was for uh Israel to destroy Hezbollah and their arsenal of rockets and everything else, but it became pretty obvious that Hezbollah was was far more uh skilled and adversary than anybody had counted on.
Now, on the other hand, you know, there there are people who resisted signing this uh peace agreement, this ceasefire, who uh said, in fact, very specifically the uh the Lebanese government approved the ceasefire plan after five hours of debate, but a couple of guys that were representing Hezbollah went along with the decision, though they expressed their reservations because they say it blamed Hezbollah for the war.
Well, uh, what did Hezbollah think?
Hezbollah's already on the record saying that they didn't expect such a fierce reaction from Israel when they kidnapped and killed Israeli soldiers.
I how could that possibly be?
And they said that they feel that maybe this resolution we shouldn't be signing because not only does it blame Hezbollah, it seems to exonerate Israel.
Well, let me let me explain something, and this goes for everyone, because all along the way, everybody said Israel certainly has a right to defend themselves.
But it appears that some folks in the Middle East who've now who in the beginning were against Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, then they said it kind of turned on the fact that Israel responded in such a a harsh way.
Let me explain something.
I know I missed Vietnam by days, and I had a high number in the in the in the lottery.
And uh and always felt that if I had gone there, I I probably would have been uh out of ammunition all the time, because I figure when you go into war, you just start shooting all the time.
I know that's not the right way to look at it, but let me explain something that I think is true.
You cannot start a war and then complain that the other side is fighting too hard.
That's just something I came upon without any military experience whatsoever.
You cannot start a war.
And then when the other side responds, you can't say, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Oh, you we didn't expect you to do that.
Sorry.
You shouldn't have started the war.
You should not have dragged the Lebanese people into the insanity of kidnapping Israeli soldiers.
That's it, plain and simple.
And there have been lots of arguments about what could have been done, what should have been done, how Israel uh could have uh uh wiped out Hezbollah or tried to at least uh wipe out Hezbollah without killing so many innocents in Lebanon, and that'll be argued forever.
Frankly, it'll be argued in Israel.
The the ceasefire is in effect, but nobody has called a ceasefire in the politics right there in Israel.
Uh Prime Minister Ulmer is facing a post-war onslaught from the right, of course, Benjamin Detanyahu, the Lakud Party.
Uh he favored a major military operation to get in there and destroy what he always referred to as an Iranian army division, because we know how Hezbollah is funded and run.
Uh and so we're going to go live to Dory Gold, who was Israel's ambassador to the United Nations from 1997 through 1999, as uh I mentioned earlier, lots of articles in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal.
He now runs the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
He's written the book called Tower of Babel, How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos, and we find uh Dory in Israel.
I'm not exactly sure where, uh Dory.
Hi, this is Paul W. Smith.
Welcome into the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Hi, it's a pleasure to be with you and the listeners.
I'm in Jerusalem.
That's a great place to be, having been there myself and looking forward to one day uh going back.
Tell me what uh is going on there now in Jerusalem.
We're told that already Prime Minister Ulmerts kind of getting it from all sides.
Well, I think everyone is agreed that the period of unity that we enjoyed was very important for the strength of the nation during a war, especially a war that didn't go as well as people remembered uh Israel's wars in the past.
But also people believe, I think at this point, that we're entering a period of introspection.
We have to find out what didn't go wrong.
When the war results are finally revealed, you mean find out you mean you mean find out what did go wrong?
Find out what did what went wrong.
Yeah, okay, good.
In other words, look, when the war results come in, it'll be revealed probably that the Israeli Air Force destroyed a substantial amount of the Iranian supplied long-range missiles uh that were uh in central Lebanon.
It'll be discovered that in hand in in close fighting, Israeli soldiers were able to prevail over well-trained Hezbollah uh terrorists.
Um fundamental elements will be there, but the overall effect of the war, the fact that uh Israel was not able to suppress that short-range uh uh Katusha fire into major cities like Haifa and the rest of northern Israel uh remains a serious question.
The fact that we weren't able to leverage a situation by which we could get our uh captured soldiers, kidnapped soldiers back immediately.
Uh much of that is reflected in the ambiguous language of the UN Security Council um uh resolution 1701.
Was there any a a point in time where the argument anybody drew a line in the sand?
We're speaking with Dory Gold, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations from 1997 through 1999, he's speaking to us live from Jerusalem.
Did anyone draw a line in the sand and say we're not stopping any of this until we get our soldiers back?
Well, I think that's the sentiment of many Israeli uh soldiers, many Israeli reservists.
In fact, right now it's being revealed on the news that many reserve soldiers are uh putting together a um a uh kind of um uh list of demands of the government to keep fighting until we get our soldiers back.
And they're getting many people to sign on to this among the soldiers coming back from Lebanon.
It's actually rather surprising, but um that you know soldiers leaving a war talking about no, wait a minute, we shouldn't stop.
We have to get our soldiers back.
That's a fundamental value of the Israeli army.
So I think there is a sense of protest out there that's just beginning, and we'll see in the next few days where it leaves.
Well, as has always been the case.
Everybody can have an opinion on the Israeli army because everyone's been in it virtually, and as usual, the army is more popular than the politicians, and the army leaders are saying that the politicians kept them from doing their job.
The politicians are saying you said you could do it with air power and you didn't, so there's There's that kind of back and forth that you only see when there's a ceasefire.
When the people are together going against a common enemy, they're all together.
When they're not fighting someone else, they're fighting each other a lot.
Well, Israel has a tradition of what's called commissions of inquiry, which can call in witnesses, demand documents, subpoena material, and what is likely is that a commission of inquiry will come in.
One of the questions people are going to ask is this.
Did the Army actually offer a plan to come in with overwhelming force using ground forces?
Dory, we couldn't connect with you right away.
We connected a little late.
I'm going to ask you to hold so we can carry you through this next break.
As we continue on the Rush Limbaugh program, I'm Paul W. Smith.
Coming to you from the Midwest campus of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, where there is never a final exam, but we are tested every day from the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building WJR in Detroit, where I do the morning show Monday through Friday, and from time to time lucky enough to get the call to sit in for Rush, who will be back in the chair tomorrow, and I can't wait to hear what he's going to say about everything that's been happening.
Dory Gold is with us.
Dory Gold was uh Israel's ambassador to the United Nations from 1997 through 1999.
Dory now runs the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and you can get more information on the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs by logging on W. J.C.P.A.
org.
That's JCPA.org.
We're live in Jerusalem with Dory.
And Dory, we were just talking about whether the soldiers, uh if the army, rather, had presented a plan.
Now you have to understand.
We on the outside look at the Israeli army in hallowed terms.
They have always been thought of as the best.
And this didn't help their cause very much with the questions now of the analysis, of the preparedness, the training.
Heck, even Israeli soldiers getting kidnapped, all of that.
So give us your perspective, Dory, from Jerusalem.
Well, this will be a subject of investigation now.
Was it that the Army came up with a really solid plan to come in guns blazing with lots of tanks, three divisions like in 1982, uh, when Israel went into Lebanon in a previous war, um, and then the political echelon said, no, we just want to do something using air power?
Or was it that the army said, Oh, we can win with air power, you know, we're gonna be like NATO in Kosovo, and we have endless amount of time to do this.
We don't know.
And that's why you need a commission of inquiry to investigate this and get to the bottom of it.
So we can be prepared for the next round.
I think people have to understand that this UN Security Council resolution, 1701 that created the ceasefire, is not going to bring peace.
It's a very unstable.
The French foreign minister, for example, said in Le Monde on Saturday that UNIFOL, the UN forces in Lebanon, aren't going to dismantle Hezbollah.
We're hearing uh from the Lebanese ministers who approved the ceasefire, that um Hezbollah doesn't believe that it has to dismantle its weaponry south of the Latani River in the bottom sixth of Lebanon.
So we have different interpretations of this resolution.
We have very questionable determination by the international community to implement what they actually approved.
Well, in fact, uh, you make very good sense, Dory Gold, and as uh Michael Ladin wrote to today, matter of fact, uh even if the Israelis had conducted a brilliantly successful campaign that killed every single Hezbollah terrorist in Lebanon, it would only have bought time.
The Syrians and the Iranians would have restocked, rearmed, and resupplied and prepared for the next battle.
Simple as that.
Well, you have to see this as really the first shot in Iran's effort to win regional hegemony.
The Iranians have a plan.
They're trying to use the Shiite communities, Shiite Muslim communities of the Middle East, as communities that they can exploit, they can recruit in, create new Hezbollahs, and therefore win an Iranian position, not just in Lebanon, but in Iraq, in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, which is fifty percent Shiite, that's where the all the oil is located, in Bahrain, in Kuwait, and in the United Arab Emirates.
So if this Iran Hezbollah combination is replicated successfully in those various areas, Iran will be well placed to dominate the oil resources of the Middle East.
And in maybe a few years, they'll have a nuclear umbrella as well.
That's the danger that the world faces.
Dory Gold is with us.
He was Israel's ambassador to the United Nations from 1997 through 1999.
You can reach him now at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and learn all about what he's doing at WW dot JCPA dot org.
I'm Paul W. Smith uh here on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Russia's back with you tomorrow.
We're live in Jerusalem with Dory.
Uh, I don't know when sixty minutes plays there.
They they must ship it in now uh via satellite.
Did you I'm not sure what their schedule would be, but did you happen to hear anything, Dory, about sixty minutes last night and Mike Wallace's uh interview with Iran's president, Ahmadine Ajad.
Well, there was a news item on the radio here in Hebrew that made reference to it, but uh probably won't be played here till next Saturday night.
This guy is uh he's very sharp at what he's doing.
He rolled it all out.
Uh he says things like Bush can save the economy without killing people.
He says he's saddened to hear that one percent of the population in the U.S. is in prison.
He's saddened to hear that forty-five million Americans don't have any health care coverage.
He's obviously a subscriber to the New York Times.
Well, he's also subscriber to a very dangerous cult in Shi'ite Islam.
You know, the Shiites have a belief in a lost imam, a hidden imam that's a religious leader, and uh they have a belief going back to the time of the uh son-in-law of uh Muhammad Ali that there were twelve of these imams, and the last one has gone into hiding, and when he comes out, a new messianic era will begin.
Well, this particular president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadi Lajad, believes that he can accelerate that process by starting a world conflict.
And uh, this is the real problem, because if he gets his hands on nuclear weapons with this kind of belief in accelerating the return of the hidden Imam, it's a deadly combination.
And that's why we're closely monitoring in Israel what he's up to.
All right, let me uh if it's all right with you, Dory Gold, some people standing by that would like to speak with you, which is a part of what this program is all about.
1-800-282-2882, 1-800-282-2882, Paul W in for Rush.
And if it's okay with you, HR, uh, let's take some calls that uh that tie in with what Dory's talking about.
I think that would be Brett in Atlanta.
Brett, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith, and you're speaking live in Jerusalem with Dory Gold.
Hi, Paul, hi Dory.
Listen, one of the things that's got me really frustrated right now is all of the Monday morning quarterbacking that's going on about the Israel Defense Force and how they're not doing or living up to their great expectation when I believe that they sincerely are.
No one's taking into account uh possibly that not only are they going up against Rag Tag Hezbollah, but they're also going against against Syria.
Uh uh, they've claimed to have Iranian forces, and I another question is why are they not uh broadcasting all the support that's going in in behind Hezbollah?
I don't I don't understand.
I think you make a very good point.
Uh you know, I think we as Israelis have great expectations of our armed forces.
We know that in um face-to-face confrontations where Israeli commandos have come up against Hezbollah terrorists, our boys have won hands down.
The question is whether the war could have been orchestrated differently at the high command level.
But I we have no question of the quality of our soldiers.
I'll raise another issue, which is actually coming up in Israel.
I don't know whether you're following it in America.
We found that these deadly anti-tank missiles called Cornet missiles are actually manufactured by the Russians.
And the Russians were selling them to Iran and they were swearing to us that they'll never get in the hands of Hezbollah.
But lo and behold, the Russians sold these missiles, and they were transferred to Hezbollah and used against the Israeli army in southern Lebanon.
We have actually sent a team of Israeli officers and intelligence people to Moscow to lay this out before the Russians.
Because frankly, if Russian weapons are getting in the hands of Hezbollah, they can also get in the hands of the Chechens, they can get in the hands of Al Qaeda.
And uh all we need is an SA eighteen shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile next to a Western airport.
And so uh we hope the Russians will wise up from the information we're going to give them.
And and Brett, let me explain that this uh th th these aren't uh criticisms from outside of Israel on the Israeli uh army and uh their effort here.
This is uh introspection and criticism from within Israel, as uh Dory has been able to point out, and as you'll be hearing about in the news in the days to come.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Well, I can't hear Brett anymore, so I'm gonna assume he is gone.
Thank you, Brett uh very much.
Marlene in uh Queens in New York City.
Marlene, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith, and you're with Dory Gold live in Jerusalem, Marlene.
Thanks very much for taking my call.
Uh I just want to say I'm a regular peace, love and caring person, but I feel if we in the free world don't get the stomach for civilian casualties, we are never going to win the war on terror anywhere.
Israel could have leveled South Lebanon, but because the always losed the PR war, they couldn't do it.
If we bomb them where they are embedded with the civilians, one day the civilians won't want them there.
That's how I feel.
What do you think?
Well, I'm gonna l since we have Dory Gold on the line from Jerusalem and he's listening in as well.
Let's let uh him talk.
Let's see what he thinks.
Well, the international laws of war were developed when everybody wore very nice uniforms and they could be identified.
Here were the soldiers, here were the civilians.
What is happening now because of the growth of terrorism is that uh first of all the terrorists are dressed in civilian clothing.
Second of all, they're embedding themselves and their equipment in civilian areas.
And this creates a moral burden that I don't think we in the West have worked out.
When um you know Israel strikes at a place where we know missiles are being hidden, and you find civilian casualties.
Whose moral responsibility is that?
Is it the moral responsibility of Israel?
You know, Israel has done things that no other army in the world does.
Before we strike, we drop leaflets.
We not only drop leaflets, but we also broadcast on Arabic radio channels into Southern Lebanon where we're going.
And finally, we even have this was revealed by Amir Perit, our Minister of Defense.
The Israeli military intelligence has the phone numbers of houses in southern Lebanon.
We have Arabic speakers call into the house and say, We know you have missiles that have been put there by Hezbollah.
Get the missiles out, or you get out, because this is a target.
Now you've done those three things, and yeah, then you strike.
And then, of course, CNN, the BBC and everybody else comes and shows that you're killing civilians.
Um it's a very difficult situation.
Marlowe, we have to protect our people.
And we have to uh actually work out together new laws of war, uh new uh that take into account what the uh um terrorists are doing.
Yeah, Marlene, I appreciate the call and and Dory, I'm gonna let you go.
But uh for another time, we didn't even get into the story that you wrote last month in the New York Sun the fact that for the past twenty-five years, the United Nations Security Council has repeatedly demanded in resolution after resolution that all foreign forces leave Lebanese territory.
The Israeli government did, uh but the Syrian army stayed, Iran stayed, the Iran backed terrorists uh of Hezbollah stayed, and and they didn't do anything about it.
So uh there's more to talk about, obviously, and Dory will look forward to uh speaking with you again and for our Rush Limbaugh listeners, uh the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, WW dot JCPA dot org.
Thanks for joining us live from Jerusalem, Dory.
I appreciate it.
It's my pleasure.
Dory Gold, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations from 1997 through 1999.
Another view on what's happening from the Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, Danielle Pletka will join us in just a moment.
As we continue on the Rush Limbaugh program, I'm Paul W. Smith.
As you know, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopting a resolution calling for an end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, authorizing too, the deployment of fifteen thousand UN peacekeepers to help Lebanese troops take control of South Lebanon as uh Israel withdraws.
First uh significant action by the Security Council since this all began.
Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
And she is on the other end of our line right now, and uh we welcome you to the Rush Limbaugh program, Danielle.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
Thanks for having me.
It's my pleasure.
Give us your take, if you would, your s your uh learned take on this UN ceasefire and agreement and what we might expect.
Well, uh, I it doesn't have the ingredients for a lasting ceasefire.
It doesn't have the ingredients for a resolution of the underlying problem uh between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel and Lebanon.
It's uh I think on balance, uh it is uh probably uh a loser for everybody.
Isn't that something?
And and we're getting word now over the wires, too, that uh Tehran uh continues to deny giving weapons to Hezbollah, uh, and that's just uh astounding.
We we find their fingerprints on everything, and we do that in Iraq as well.
Well, Paul, you know what's amazing is and I don't think people pay close attention to to the details, but the Hezbollah has been using laser guided anti-tank missiles.
They've been using Russian surface to air missiles, they've been using anti-u uh naval missiles.
All of these things, all of them, whether they are originally from China or originally from Russia, are being supplied to them via Syria from Iran.
And the quality and the sophistication of these weapons is amazing.
And therefore, uh we have to be very concerned because we're the end game.
That's what they really uh are concerned with and they care about.
They have their own ideas, and we got a little taste of it by watching Sixty Minutes last night, Mike Wallace landing that interview.
Uh, and you know, you can argue about giving this guy any airtime or not, but I think it's really important to see how he thinks and how he presents himself.
He's very frightening uh in his approach to uh to everything.
But to to say that everybody loses in this uh agreement put forward by the United Nations means it's not going to last.
So what's going to happen next, in your opinion?
Well, uh we we will certainly see a return to fighting between Hezbollah and and Israel.
Uh will we see it next week?
I'm not sure.
Will we see it next year?
I'm not sure.
But without a doubt, and even the Israeli Prime Minister who backed this resolution said, we will see fighting again because this resolution does not disarm Hezbollah, and that is its fatal flaw.
When you let a terrorist group attack you, kidnap your soldiers, and then the ceasefire ends without them being forced to end their armed empire within Lebanon.
What you are doing is sowing the seeds for future conflict.
But it's not just with Israel, and this is what the American people need to remember, and I think we don't hear it often enough.
This is not just about Hezbollah's hostility towards Israel.
This is about the operation of terrorist groups with impunity throughout the world, hosted by governments.
This is what led to the Taliban supporting Al Qaeda, which led to September 11th.
We cannot mistake who the target at the end of the day will be.
It will be the United States.
Well, you say that so clearly and uh with such strength.
When we come back, Danielle Pletka, Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
I want to hear what you think we should do.
The U.S. So stay with us here on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
We've squeezed every minute out of this hour, but Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, battlefields in a regional war.
A woman who's worked on a project on democracy in the Arab world from the American Enterprise Institute.
Danielle Pletka, in the final minute here, what should we do?
I think that we need to recognize that the threat that is out there, the threat of terrorism is one that targets the United States.
What these guys are looking for is weakness.
When we compromise, when we make deals, when we stop in our tracks, when we cut and run, they sense that weakness, as they did during the nineties, during the Clinton administration, and they think that they can win, and when they think they can win, they come over here and they target us.
We need to be after them everywhere they are.
Sometimes it's not the right thing to negotiate.
Sometimes you have to win.
All right, very well put.
I thank you for joining us in sharing your expertise.
Uh Danielle Pletka, Vice President Foreign Defense Policy American Enterprise Institute, and she sums it up brilliantly.
And you saw it with Mike Wallace on Sixty Minutes with Iran's President, Ahmadine Ajat.
He was mouthing the things he's read, said against our president in our institutional media.
It's a crime.
Or maybe it should be.
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